


I Do Solemnly Swear

by IBoatedHere



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, President AU, President/First Gentleman AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 06:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7350160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IBoatedHere/pseuds/IBoatedHere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caleb finds him leaning against a desk in the Red Room with his tie and cufflinks still undone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Do Solemnly Swear

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr.

Caleb finds him leaning against a desk in the Red Room with his tie and cufflinks still undone. 

He looks up when he hears the door opens and fully expects to see one of his secret service agents or maybe Billy stick his head in and tell him it's time to go, people are waiting. 

Instead, it's his husband who says something to his own agent that's too soft for Ben to hear. Caleb closes the door behind him and heads straight for him. 

Caleb looks great in the suit Mary picked out for him. It cuts along the length of this body perfectly and the tie is a complimentary shade of blue to go along with his own. His hair is pulled back with a few dark strands escaping and his beard has been trimmed short enough to resemble a fashionable 5 o'clock shadow. Ben doesn't doubt Mary is responsible for that. He'd bet she had to pin him down with a knee to his chest while she held the trimmer. She is small but she is mighty. And determined. And doing the lord's work. 

“You look nice,” Ben mummers when Caleb gets close enough. 

Caleb hums and tugs on his husband's lapels. “So do you but you're nowhere near dressed. I saw Anna out there making eyes at Mary and thought you'd be all ready.”

“I told her to head out. I can still dress myself.”

“And yet here you are, still undressed.” He shakes his head and goes to work on the tie. 

Ben keeps his head down, staring at Caleb's shined shoes bracketing his own. Caleb slides the knot up then brushes his knuckles against the underside of Ben's chin, forcing him to raise it. “Are you okay?”

Ben hesitates. He'll have to tell him eventually. But not just yet. He puts his hands on Caleb's hips and pulls him in further between his thighs. 

“Let's get out of here.”

Caleb laughs. “Yeah, alright, I'll tell the boys to bring the car around.”

“Let's ditch them. We did it before.”

And they have. At a campaign stop in The Middle Of Nowhere Iowa after Ben finished up at a rally at a local high school gym. Ben had been hit with something reckless; a memory of his and Caleb's high school days and that class they skipped after lunch where they opted to make out frantically against the warm brick of the building instead of learning pre-calc. 

Ben had caught Caleb's eye while he was still on stage and Caleb had nodded, seemed to know exactly what Ben had wanted, and slipped away. He didn't have security on him as tightly as he does now so Ben showed no surprise when Caleb caught him by the elbow and pulled him down a hallway swinging a set of car keys around his index finger. 

Security and his campaign manager caught up to them at a Sonic five miles from the school just as Ben was finishing off a chocolate shake. Rob and Abe talked quickly and quietly into the small mics at their sleeves and Billy laid into the both of them while standing outside the driver's side door. After that Abe and Rob switched to tailing Caleb and Ben was given a much more menacing pair. Both 6’4 and over two hundred and fifty pound of muscle. 

“You wanna Jimmy the window open and slip out?” Caleb asks him. 

“We are on the first floor.”

“Benjamin,” he admonishes gently and slides his hands down the front of his jacket, frowning when he hits a bump in his suit pocket. He pulls out one cigarette with a frown. “I thought we talked about this.”

“I wasn't going to smoke it.”

“Ben.”

“Just the one. I don't have a pack on me.”

“I want to know where you got this.”

“I'm the President. I have ways.”

His frown deepens and he sticks it in his own pocket. Ben whines. 

“It's for the stress. Just one, c’mon.”

“It's one now and then one more and then another and then the doctor is releasing information about your smokey lungs after your annual physical. Do you want that? After you led that campaign against cigarettes?”

“No.”

“That's what I thought. Get some pot if you're so stressed.”

Now it's Ben's turn to frown. 

“You're the President. I'm sure someone could find some for you if you wanted it.” 

“I want to leave.”

“Why?”

“This is boring.”

“This is your job. And you can't leave. You're Canadian boyfriend is out there.”

Ben shakes his head. “Justin-.”

“Justin,” Caleb says loudly, joking and making Ben hold him even closer. “He calls him Justin.”

“What am I supposed to call him?”

“Mr. Prime Minister?”

“That’s awful formal for a secret lover.”

“Ha. So you read that Buzzfeed article?”

“Of course I did, you sent it to me.”

“I send you a lot of things. Do you read them all?” When Ben nods Caleb laughs. “Oh, I can’t wait until next year when whoever runs against you digs up your personal email looking for dirty and only finds Buzzfeed articles and memes. It’s gonna be great.”

Ben’s mouth twists into a forced smile and his eyes drift back to their shoes.

“Pretty boy,” Caleb says as he rubs his thumb beneath Ben’s bottom lip. “What’s the matter?”

Ben scoffs. “I hate that nickname.”

“You love it.”

“It’s what the opposition calls me because they think I’m too young. They mean it as an insult.”

“Well I ain’t the opposition. I’m the husband and the whole world knows you’re pretty and I’m going to call it how everyone sees it. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“Caleb, I’m not going to run for re-election.”

Caleb’s hands press against his chest as he studies Ben’s face. “When did you decide that?”

“I’ve been thinking about it. I’m so tired, Caleb. I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”

“What do you want to do?”

Ben shrugs. “I could probably land a guest lecture spot at Yale. They’ve asked before. It would be years sooner than they expected but….what I really want is privacy. I want to go places without guys in suits with guns following me. I want to take a vacation without having it be criticized and politicized. I want to take you out to dinner, just the two of us.”

Caleb presses his lips together and puts his hand on the side of Ben’s neck. “Okay,” he says quietly, “but you know it’s never going to be like that, right? You’re always going to have men following you around ready to take a bullet for you-.”

“I don’t want them to take a bullet for me.”

“I know you don’t but I’m not even a little bit sorry when I say that I do. People are always going to follow you around. We’re never going to be able to go out just the two of us.”

“I know. I know. But I want to get as close to that as possible and I can’t do that with dinners with foreign dignitaries every other week and people analyzing everything I say and the way I say it. Is it wrong that I want to stop working at the end of the day and just come home. I don’t want to think about military action and revising speeches. I want to come home and sleep in the same bed as you, always. I want it to be me and you like it was before. We could get a dog that we could actually take care of, not some aide or a kid. We’re not too old for that. We don’t have to adopt an infant, there are so many older kids that need homes.”

“Okay, easy there, Tallboy.”

“I’m sorry.” He leans forward and rests his forehead against Caleb’s shoulder. He feels even more exhausted than he did before. Caleb rubs at his back. “Would it be okay if I didn’t run again? I know you pretend you don’t like these kind of dinner but I know you secretly do. You wouldn’t be disappointed if we didn’t have to attend them all the time or fly to different countries or live where we do?”

“Hey.” He pulls Ben back so he can look him straight in the eyes. “Do you not remember what it was like before all this? Living in that tiny little apartment in New Haven barely having enough money for your books and food to eat. We had the water turned off on us, twice. I would have lived the rest of my life right there with you. We could move back there tomorrow and struggle through it all over again as long as we’re there together. Tallboy, I don’t care if you’re the President or not. I never have.”

Ben sways forward and kisses him. They’ve been missing for awhile now. Someone's going to be knocking on that door any minute now. If it’s Anna she’s just going to bust in. 

Still, he deepens the kiss. 

“I like that,” he says between slow swipes of his tongue across Caleb’s bottom lip. “I like it when you call me Tallboy.”

“You always hated it.”

“No, I always loved it. Always loved you.”

Caleb sighs into the kiss until there’s a knock at the door.

“Mr. President-oh.” It’s Billy. He seems slightly embarrassed but doesn’t close the door. “I’m sorry sir, but people are asking where you are. What should I tell them?”

Caleb eases back and straightens Ben’s tie. “You can tell them we’re on our way, Billy.”

“Okay, thank you, sir.” He closes the door but there’s no footsteps leading away from it. He’s waiting and if they’re not out the door and on the way to the East Room in the next thirty seconds he’ll be back in. 

“Alright, Mr. President, we can finish this later.”

Ben finally stands upright and rolls his shoulders. “You won’t be able to call me that for too much longer.”

“Tallboy,” Caleb steps into his space but doesn’t kiss him. Instead he reaches for his wrists and does up the loose cufflinks. “We can finish this later.”

Ben smiles and follows his husband out the door.


End file.
